I finally got a CentOS 5 domU running under Debian.
The xen-tools xen-create-image method didn’t work. I managed to find an appropriate build script for centos5, but it was pretty badly out of date, trying to install RPM versions that don’t exist on the mirror servers any more. Trying to bring it back up to date would have been a PITA. It has the RPM versions hard-coded in the script.
However the instructions at http://wiki.kartbuilding.net/index.php/Create_Centos5_DomU_on_Debian_Etch_Dom0 worked a treat.
After following those steps, I converted it from a file-based image, to an LVM, with the following steps:
Manually create logical volumes for the filesystem and swap. I use 40G filesystem LVs and 128M swaps.

# mkdir /mnt/loop
# mkdir /mnt/cenots
# mount /home/andrew/centos.5-0.img /mnt/loop -o loop
# mount /dev/mapper/ember-centos5–disk /mnt/centos
# cd /mnt/loop
# cp -Rp bin boot dev etc home lib media mnt opt root sbin selinux srv sys tmp usr var ../centos
# cd
# umount /mnt/loop
# umount /mnt/centos

Then edit /etc/xen/domains/centos.cfg and change the following lines:

kernel = “/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-4-xen-686″
ramdisk = “/boot/initrd.img-2.6.18-4-xen-686″
vif = ['bridge=xenbr0']
disk = ['file:/xens/name_of_new_server_to_be/centos.5-0.img,sda1,w','file:/xens/name_of_new_server_to_be/centos.swap,sda2,w']

To:

kernel = ‘/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-6-xen-686′
ramdisk = “/boot/initrd.img-2.6.18-6-xen-686″
vif = [ 'ip=192.168.1.13' ]
disk = [ 'phy:ember/centos5-disk,sda1,w', 'phy:ember/centos5-swap,sda2,w' ]

Then “xm create centos”. Boom! Centos 5, running as a domU on a Debian Etch dom0, from a logical volume.
And I still have the original centos5 image file for creating fresh domUs.

Originally published at /dev/zero. You can comment here or there.

Aught to be a good title for a book on Xen, no?

Anyway, while discussing Xen with the COO (and it just occurred to me, really this project should be the CTO’s, not the COOs… odd how the COO does all this stuff…) he came to the conclusion that, like openVZ and Virtuozzo, Xen guest systems shared the kernel with the Host. That didn’t sound right to me, but I couldn’t disprove it with my Xen server, where every DomU had an empty /boot.

So I updated the kernel in Dom0, but didn’t reboot. I now have a newer kernel installed than the one it’s currently running.
I then tweaked the /etc/xen-tools/xen-tools.conf and built a new DomU, to use the new kernel. Everything went without a hitch. I now have a Dom0 running 2.6.18-4-xen-686, with a domU running 2.6.18-6-xen-686. So it would seem that while they all “share” a kernel in the sense that they share a single install on the hard drive (all pulling from the dom0 /boot directory), they aren’t sharing a single instance of the kernel in memory.

I then tried to get a working CentOS 5 domU running, but ran into some snags. That will be another post.

Originally published at /dev/zero. You can comment here or there.

Just a personal note so I can find how to install Debian on a DomU again

Originally published at /dev/zero. You can comment here or there.